


Smells Like Teen Spirit

by Alis_Wonderland



Series: The Secret [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Everyone thinks Stiles is dead, Gen, Season/Series 05, Temporary Character Death, but he really isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alis_Wonderland/pseuds/Alis_Wonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While everyone is busy with the new threat in town or basically trying to avoid Stiles, a bomb goes off at the police station. As it turns out, Stiles was there when it happened. He died in the explosion that night, so how will the gang react when they start seeing his ghost a couple weeks later. Is it just their guilt pushing them into insanity…or is it something else completely?</p><p>Or the one where everyone thinks Stiles is dead due through a series of misunderstandings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smells Like Teen Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> After reading a couple of Ghost!Stiles stories, I wanted to write my own Ghost AU, but I didn’t want it to be sad (yeah, I know it’s basically unavoidable). I wanted to come up with a way where everyone still mourns for his death and feel terrible for how they treated Stiles after finding out what happened to Donavan, but also where Stiles doesn’t have to leave to the ‘Realm of the Dead’ after his unfinished business is resolved. Then a dream I had a long time ago, came to mind and I thought it would be the perfect solution for my dilemma if I could make a similar version for Stiles.  
> For the title, I wanted something with ‘ghost’ or something similar to be part of it, but I found all my ideas lame. For some reason, I remembered the scene in the movie Pan where they are singing Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, and thought why not. It was better than my other possible titles

“Stiles, right now is not the time. I have work to do, tell me later,” the sheriff grumbled as he left to answer a dispatch call of a car accident.  
Stiles sighed, he knew his father was just using his job to effectively avoid talking to him. Lately, all his friends were doing the same thing since Theo told them about Donavan. They hadn’t even given him a chance to explain what really happened, and that frustrated Stiles beyond belief. He understood they didn’t know how to deal with him, but they didn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt. Guess he now knew where he stood in the pack.  
The police station was roaring with noise around him. Lately, there was so much going on around Beacon Hills that no one seemed to have time to pay attention to a skinny pale teenager.  
“Sometimes, I feel like a ghost.”  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Ten minutes after leaving the station, Sheriff Stilinski’s dispatch radio went crazy saying there had been an explosion at the station and they needed all available officers to head over to the emergency.  
The sheriff’s eyes instantly filled with dread as he came to a realization.  
“Oh my God! Stiles!” was all he said before making a big U-turn and speeding to the scene like a demon from hell.  
He hoped and begged the powers above that his son was safe. Stiles was all he had, he couldn’t bear to lose him as well.  
When he arrived at the station, he was sure his heart had skipped a beat. The whole building was in flames. Some fellow police officers were trying to calm down survivors, while others were making their way out of the burning building. The firefighters were trying to put out the flames and were still pulling out people. That was great and all, but the sheriff only had one thing in his mind.  
Where was Stiles? Where was his son?  
That’s when a pair of firefighters pulled out a body from the flames. That’s the moment Sheriff Stilinski’s world stopped.  
“Please don’t be Stiles! Please don’t be him!” he begged. “Please not my son!”  
Running up to the body, he could see that it was wearing an unmistakable red hoodie, or at least its burned remains.  
The sheriff immediately collapsed on his knees as a downpour of rain fell upon the scene. Why must there always be rain at times like these? It was as if the sky was crying alongside the man, mourning his loss.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
The funeral was very depressing and it was surprising how many people came to pay their respects. Scott and the pack were there, all of them looking as guilty as the sheriff for pushing Stiles away in his last days. Derek was also there, having barely come back from wherever he had run off to. Even Peter was there, yes, even sassy Peter ‘I’m going to rip your throat apart when you aren’t looking’ Hale. Everyone kept giving him confused stares, and when it was his turn to give a little speech, they were all shocked to hear that Peter had actually cared a lot for the teenage boy.  
In the few weeks after the funeral, everyone was having trouble coming to terms with their loss. Stiles had been the glue that kept everything together, and now everything was falling apart.  
The sheriff was having it the worst. He was all alone now. No wife, no son. Truly and utterly alone.  
He quickly fell back into his drinking habit, and as much as Scott (or all the others who came to check on him) tried to comfort him, no one could make him stop drinking. He had fallen into some depressed trance, no longer paying attention to his surroundings. It was all a blur.  
That all changed one day when he came back home from the local bar. Something was off as soon as he stepped inside, but he wasn’t sure what.  
“Oh, hey dad,” a voice said coming from somewhere above the sheriff.  
Already startled by the voice and its comment, Mr. Stilinski was very hesitant to look up. When he did, his eyes went wide and his face paled as he stared at the one and only Stiles Stilinski.  
He froze on the spot like a deer in the headlights.  
“How many times have I told you to stop drinking?” the ghost of his son said with slight anger in his voice. “Jeezes, I can’t leave you alone for a few days without you falling back into your bad habits. You’re totally lost without me.”  
John Stilinski will later be embarrassed to admit what he did at the moment, but right then and there, he passed out. As in fainted.

John woke up with a start as he basically jumped out of bed. He instantly regretted it, sudden movement did not mix well with a hangover.  
Being more careful to pace himself, he started making his way through his house, checking every room for any signs of the ghost. There were none, his son’s ghost was nowhere in sight. Though, he did notice that somethings throughout the house had been moved around.  
“Maybe it was just a dream,” he thought to himself after at least thirty minutes of staring at the stairs…the place the ghost had appeared. “That wouldn’t explain how I ended up in my bed after passing out in the kitchen floor. Did someone from the pack come and check on me last night? Damn, I hate not being able to remember.”  
He continued to ramble to himself, trying to convince himself that it had all been in his mind.  
All that wishful thinking came crashing down when the sheriff spotted something that shouldn’t have been there or anywhere else. A note.  
A note written in none other than his son’s handwriting.  
I’ll be back in a while, take it easy while I’m out.  
John’s heart started beating so fast to the point it might burst out his chest at any moment.  
He was about to call Scott and the pack, already thinking he had finally snapped and gone crazy, when the phone rang. Speak of the devil, it was Scott McCall.  
The young man’s voice sounded panicked on the other end as he said they were going to have an emergency pack meeting. Scott didn’t give Mr. Stilinski any details before hanging up, other than to get to their meeting immediately.  
Something told the sheriff that he already knew what the meeting was going to be about. His mind was already programmed to think that where there was trouble, so was Stiles.  
He hated to think about it, but what if what he saw was real? What if his son was really a ghost? Given all the supernatural things that he had recently found out about, it wouldn’t be too hard to add ghosts to the increasing list of things that exist.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
As he arrived at the meeting place, that turned out to be Derek’s loft, John noticed that the whole pack seemed nervous and confused. They only took notice of his presence when he was about three feet from them.  
“So what is this all about?” he asked.  
Scott seemed like he wanted to explain, but he didn’t know how so he stayed quiet.  
Tired of the awkward silence that spanned for a couple minutes, the sheriff was the one to speak.  
“You guys saw him, didn’t you? You saw Stiles?” he asked, dreading the response.  
Everyone flinched at his words, staring at him with scared eyes.  
“How did y-” Scott began.  
John sighed, slightly from relief of not going crazy a he first thought, but also with sadness for his son’s unfortunate fate.  
“I saw him, too. He appeared at our house last night. I thought I was too drunk and was hallucinating, but now that I know you guys have seen him too, I’m not sure what to think.”  
“He’s at your house right now?!” Scott exclaimed, looking as if he was about to take off towards the sheriff’s house.  
“No, when I woke up this morning, he was nowhere in sight. Where have you seen him?”  
Derek was the one to answer this time, given that Scott seemed to have drifted into his own little world. “Scott and the others say they have seen him all around town these past two days. I haven’t seen him myself, but then again I don’t go out much.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” John asked with slight anger.  
“We wanted to know some more information on the situation before we gave you the news,” Derek replied with a shrug. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to find much.”  
Finally getting out of dream land, Scott began to contribute to the conversation again. “Deaton said that if Stiles really is a ghost, then he might spend most of his time haunting the place he died or somewhere that held strong memories for him.”  
“Well we already searched the remains of the police station and found nothing,” Lydia added, “and knowing that Stiles hated school, he definitely won’t be there.”  
Everyone gave a sad smile at the Banshee’s comment, letting their minds fill with memories of their dorky friend.  
“It’s only common sense to think that he would most likely haunt the house he lived in. It would be better to head there first instead of looking all over town for him, though it might come to that since basically every place in Beacon Hills holds some sort of memory.”  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In the end, they all decided to go over to the sheriff’s house to check things out. As soon as they arrived, all the wolves were hit with the strong scent of Stiles.  
“Why is his scent so strong, shouldn’t ghosts not have a scent?” Peter questioned as he stepped in after everyone else. No one knew why Peter even came with them, but they all assumed he was just as curious as the rest of them about the whole ghost business. “Also, I hate to be the one to say this, but if Stiles is really here, we’re going to have to help him cross over and put his soul to rest. Spirits can sometimes turn vengeful.”  
The rest of the group glared at him, none of them wanted to think about that right now.  
“We’ll figure something out when we cross that bridge,” Scott answered. “Right now, let’s just focus on finding Stiles first.”

Going through the first floor of the house got all the werewolves of the group confused. Stiles’s scent was so strong, but how could that be? It had started fading since his death. The only room that should have this strong of a scent would be Stiles’s room since John had not dared to pack away any of his son’s stuff yet. But that room was upstairs and had its door closed, so how was this possible?  
The kitchen stopped them dead in their tracks. There was a new note on the counter.  
Don’t wait up for me. So much to do, so little time.  
This note was also in Stiles’s handwriting, but this one seemed rushed or just plain crappier than the last one.  
If Stiles had been there at the moment, he would have had a giggle fit from the way Scott reacted.  
“Oh my God! Did he write this?!” the puppy-like alpha shouted. “So little time, what if he can’t stay for long? What should we do? Stiles! Stiles, are you here buddy?”  
Peter couldn’t help, but laugh as Scott frantically ran around the house as if he would find Stiles hiding somewhere. He found it funny how the young man came up with the most ridiculous thoughts.  
“Scott, calm down,” Derek grumbled in annoyance.  
“But what if he needs our help for something? What if he is trapped here and feels alone? Does he know we saw him? Does he even know he’s dead or is he in a constant loop of reliving memories from his life?”  
Before anyone could say anything, the TV turned on by its own and is on one of Stiles’s favorite channels.  
The whole gang freaked out a bit and started believing the ghost of their friend really was haunting the house. Scott started calling for Stiles again and constantly apologized for the way they had treated him in the last moments of his life. The others followed suit.  
An hour passed, and nothing happened. They waited some more before they decided to call it a day, saying they would come back the next day.  
Throughout the next couple days, the gang continued to see Stiles around town. Every time they tried to approach him, they would lose him to the crowd. At the sheriff’s house, things kept disappearing where John had left them, and appeared elsewhere.  
It was driving all of them crazy. They even got an Ouija board, in hopes of contacting their friend.  
On the fifth afternoon since they had started seeing Stiles, the whole gang decided to go to the Sheriff’s house. Derek practically had to be dragged along and stood against the kitchen wall, being a total sourwolf. Most likely grumbling about the fact that weak, wimpy Stiles had actually scared him when he had encountered the dead teenager on the street. Peter just seemed to be there for his own amusement and to make sassy comments about the pack’s pathetic attempts to evoke a spirit.  
Scott and the others tried their best to ignore the older werewolf as they began to work with Ouija board.  
After a few minutes of calling out to Stiles’s spirit, nothing seemed to happen. They were all about to call it quits.  
That’s when the singing started.  
“Cause the world might do me in  
It's alright, 'cause I'm with friends  
Guess I'm giving up again  
It doesn't matter”  
First only the werewolves of the group could hear it, but soon the voice became loud enough for everyone else to hear. And the voice definitely sounded like it belonged to a certain dead teenager. It was a nice singing voice, but the song didn’t really help the mood.  
“I been feeling like a ghost  
And it's what I hate the most  
Guess I'm giving up again  
This time  
This time  
This time  
This time I might just disappear…”  
The singing seemed to be coming from upstairs, but no one dared to move from where they were at.  
“Try and hear me then I'm done  
'Cause I might just say this once  
Seen this play out in my dream  
It doesn't matter”  
The singing got louder as a door upstairs creaked open. That got the whole gang to simultaneously whip their heads towards the stairs, and more directly, Stiles’s bedroom door.  
And that’s when Stiles decided to pop out of the room, constantly bobbing his head up and down to a beat.  
“Time for givin' up the ghost”, he sang with his eyes closed, not taking notice of all the people in the house at the moment. He even did a little slide as he pointed his finger down at the pack. “Fuck, it's you I hate the most”  
Scott instantly thought the lyrics were directed at him and immediately started shouting apologies, which caused Stiles to actually open his eyes and pull off the earphones he was wearing, staring at the pack in shock. His eyes instantly flew towards the Ouija board. 

 

“Woah! What are you doing with one of those things in my house?! I don’t want a demon in here! Say goodbye! Say goodbye so whatever you possibly summoned will leave!” Stiles shouted as he ran down the stairs, nearly tripping several times.  
Once the teenager thought he had done every possible thing to prevent a demon or evil spirit from coming through the board, he turned to face the gang and glared at them.  
“What the blazes do you think you were doing?”  
The others could only stare at him. Scott was the first one to try to talk.  
“S-Stiles?” he questioned, taking a wary step towards his recently deceased best friend.  
“I know you’re scared, but you have to trust us. We are only here to help,” he continued, speaking in a tone usually used to calm frightened animals.  
“Yeah, I really doubt that. Especially after you believed Theo instead of me, and basically kicked me out of the pack,” Stiles scoffed. “I don’t need nor want that type of help.”  
Scott suddenly burst into tears. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I wish I could take all that back! I should have listened to your side of the story! I wish I hadn’t spent our last moments together avoiding you! I’m so sorry!”  
Stiles just remained silent with a stoic expression. Then suddenly, the TV came to life on its own.  
“Stupid piece of crap is busted,” he muttered as he turned it off by pressing the button on the side of the TV.  
The whole pack started blurting out their own apologies and looked at their friend with guilt. Even Derek seemed to feel guilty even if he stayed silent through the whole thing. Peter though, he was a whole different story. He was actually smiling, there was a mischievous gleam in his eyes. It was as he was waiting for something to happen, but was trying to wait patiently for the others to notice.  
“Jeezes, You guys are so annoying right now. Is this what it felt when I blabbered on about stuff?” Stiles sighed. “…Look guys, as much as I want to forgive you guys, I can’t. You abandoned me over some new guy…who was evil by the way. I need more time to think about things. Plus I need to catch up on any homework I missed, which is probably a lot.”  
“Humph,” Lydia sadly mumbled. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about homework anymore.”  
Stiles tilted his head slightly to the side in confusion. “And why is that?”  
All the courage Lydia had to keep herself together left that moment.  
“BECAUSE YOU DIED, YOU IDOIT!” she yelled as she let herself fall on to her knees and started weeping. Then in a barely audible voice, she whispered “You died and we became broken. You were the glue that kept us together and you left before we could fix things between us.”  
Well that wasn’t something Stiles had expected to hear. Him dead, yeah right.  
“Me dead? What kind of wolfsbane have you guys been sniffing lately! You must be tripping if you think I, the awesomeness that is Stiles, died.” He snarked.  
Everyone just stared at him with worry and confusion. Peter’s smile just got bigger.  
“Wait, you seriously thought I died?” Stiles questioned, a tint of guilt in his voice.  
Scott took a step closer and was about to speak, but was interrupted by his ‘dead’ best friend.  
“Scott, I swear if you’re about to tell me to go towards the light, I’ll send you packing towards the light myself…Trust me, I’m very alive.”  
The True Alpha gave a slight blush at being caught red-handed.  
Before anyone else made a move, Peter swiftly walked towards Stiles and wrapped in a tight hug, causing the teen to flail.  
“What the hell, Zombie Wolf?! Are you trying to kill me now that you know that I am alive!”  
“Shut up, you stupid idiot,” Peter grumbled, “I missed you, you have no idea what it’s like to be surrounded by a bunch of morons who can’t come up with any plans remotely as good as yours. It was torture. They were even so preoccupied thinking you were a ghost that they didn’t notice a simple thing such as your heartbeat. Idiots.”  
All the werewolves in the group (including grumpy Derek) instantly drooped their heads in shame and embarrassment when they realized Peter was right, the lanky teenager did have a heartbeat. There was no way a ghost would have that, right?  
As soon as the rest of the group noticed that Stiles was tangible and in fact very alive, they all tackled into a huge hug.  
After Stiles somehow managed to escape form the lung-crushing hugs, he came face to face with his dad. And for the first time since their reunion, the sheriff had found his voice.  
“Son, I…we thought you thought you were dead…T-there was a…bomb explosion at the police station a few weeks ago.”  
“There was a bomb!” Stiles shouted with shock before quickly recovering his cool. “Ha, as if I would easily be done in by a stupid little bomb. I’ve been through so much shit that something that simple can’t be the way I die. It would be pathetic of me.”  
“But there was a body…It was burned beyond recognition, but it…it had your red hoodie,” John sobbed.  
Stiles suddenly was filled with sadness.  
“Sam” he whispered.  
“What?”  
“The body you found must have been Sam. I met him at the station the night I left town. He had been in some sort of accident in the rain. He was cold and soaked to the bone and I felt bad so I let him borrow my hoodie.” Stiles said, drooping his head. “Poor guy.”  
The sheriff and the others listened to this new piece of information and couldn’t help but to feel grateful it hadn’t been Stiles that had died, even though Sam had in his place. Then all of a sudden a thought pooped in their head as they thought about what their friend had just said.  
The sheriff was the one to voice their thoughts. “What do you mean the night you left town? Son, where did you go?”  
Stiles gave a sigh. “Ha, figures that part would be the only thing you paid attention to.”  
“Answer the question, young man”, John tried to say in a stern tone, but it was obvious that he was too happy at seeing his son alive that it didn’t have the desired effect.  
“Well, everyone hated me and were avoiding me at the time. I knew I wasn’t wanted around so I spent most of the time wandering around town alone. I had just gotten a call from my cousin Luca, saying that he was passing through town. He saw how depressed I was when he arrived, so he asked me if I wanted to travel with him for a while. I had already packed and was planning on telling you that night, but you ignored me and left me alone in your office.” Stiles explained, scratching the back of his head. “I left you a note on your desk, but I guess it burned along with everything else. When we got back into town, I just tried avoiding all you guys and spent most of my time hanging out with Luca while he’s still in town. Sorry I made you think I was dead.”  
“It’s ok, son. All that matters is that you are okay,” John said with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry we ignored you for so long. We were wrong to do so.”  
“Yeah ok, but I hope you can understand that I still haven’t really forgiven all you guys. Only time can tell if I will ever be capable of doing so. We’ll talk more about this later, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”  
Everyone gave him a sad nod and promised to try to do anything to regain his friendship. Derek and Peter hadn’t been around during the whole Dread Doctors and Theo situation until after Stiles’s ‘death’, so Stiles let them off the hook…though he still didn’t really trust Peter. The guy kept giving him creepy smiles, maybe it was his way of trying to scare the teen away from his daughter, Malia.  
“Well, glad this is all settled. Now, let’s get on to the next set of business…Food. Everyone knows ghosts don’t eat, so if anyone still thinks I’m a ghost, watch me prove you wrong by stuffing my face with curly fries. I’m starving.”  
Everyone chuckled as Stiles started running out the door after they all decided on going to the local diner for lunch. That’s when everyone noticed the black lines poking out from the back of his plaid shirt’s collar. A tattoo.  
“[Whatever you think Stiles’s real name is] Stilinski! Why the hell do you have a tattoo on the back of your neck!” the sheriff yelled.  
The teenager sheepishly poked his head back into the house with a small grin on his face.  
“Let’s just say my few weeks away were very eventful and leave it at that,” Stiles answered before disappearing back outside.  
“I wonder what adventures that boy got himself into while he was away,” Peter chuckled.  
A million things instantly passed through everyone’s heads.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Stiles is jamming out to is called Ghost by Mystery Skulls. I highly recommend watching the animated music video. It was so awesome that it gained its own fandom, though I have to warn that most of it is angst, so much angst. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEb3L1PIco  
> (*Random Fact*The cousin Stiles mentions is my OC Luca, who will most likely appear again in other parts of The Secret series. He will always be an older brother type of character towards Stiles, even though in all the stories he will either be his cousin or a stranger who befriends him.)
> 
> Please leave comments :)


End file.
